Well, without trying to spoiling it and depending on the GM attempt to keeping strictly to the books, you will find that the first half of Trial of the Beast doesn't leave much time. Haunting of Harrowstone, you have about a month at the least, but mostly dedicated to adventuring.

Can't answer you for the rest of the adventure path. I'm actually in the same sorta boat you are.

You'd definitely have to make time for them to craft. The best place to do so seems to be in Caliphas, during the investigation. It'll also depend on your players, though. Mine have kind of the habit of hurrying up themselves, because they tell each other that they need to get to the next McGuffin "nownownow!", although I am willing to give them more time. :p

The creator also needs a fairly quiet, comfortable, and welllit place in which to work. Any place suitable for preparing

spells is suitable for making items.
...
If the caster is out adventuring, he can devote 4 hours each day to item creation, although he nets only 2 hours’ worth of work.This time is not spent in one continuous period, but rather during lunch, morning preparation, and during watches at night. If time is dedicated to creation, it must be spent in uninterrupted 4-hour blocks. This work is generally done in a controlled environment, where distractions are at a minimum, such as a laboratory or shrine. Work that is performed in a distracting or dangerous environment nets only half the amount of progress ( just as with the adventuring caster)

Meaning they actually can caft WHILE on the way. Just will take abit longer...

I advised against it when I started GMing this campaign with my friends. Our party's Necromancer has really banked on crafting magic items for the party though and I'm trying to be accommodating. We just finished TotB on Saturday night and even with a Ring of Sustenance to assist he just hasn't had much time to craft anything. I'm hoping that he'll change his mind during Broken Moon at which point I'll let him start to retrain his feats I guess. We'll see what happens though...

I have a party that includes two Alchemists and they are constantly looking to craft items on the go (one of them discovered the 4 hour as well) despite how fast paced the timeline is for the AP. That said, I don't discourage them from doing so, but rather set limits on what they can or cannot make. Fortunately, my players are reasonable concerning the items they want to make so it hasn't been that big of a deal and they will ask if making this or that item is possible under this or that circumstance. Since the party is about to wrap up WotW this weekend and begin AaD, they will be hitting Caliphas and that will give them time to make items that they wouldn't have been able to make otherwise in their travels. I don't intend to prevent them from having the downtime necessary to do so; as far as I'm concerned at this point they will have earned the right to do so. The only thing that will dictate if they can do so or not at this juncture will be the pace at which the PCs decide to handle the events of the adventure while there.

Even as much of a timeline there is IN a given adventure, there isn't any real pressing time constraints between the first three. Depending on when you finish HoH, you have the balance of the 30 days before you head to Lepidstadt. After the Trial is over but before you continue on to the second half of the adventure you could easily spend a couple days crafting in Lepidstadt. Even after part 2 is over in ToB you could return to Lepidstadt to not only shop byt craft as it's the best marketplace you'll be in until Caliphas (even if you stop in Ardis, it's got a lower Base Price than Lepidstadt). In Broken Moon you could plot a course cross country hitting several settlements Chastel, Morcei, Berus, or Ardis.

Most of what's been said could be figured out from the synopsis pages for the AP on this site. PCs can easily know what cities they'll visit along the way just by looking at the small blurbs about each module. That wouldn't really be spoiling anything.

Why wouldn't they? You read the jacket blurbs on books you want to buy and it doesn't spoil the whole story does it? Do you watch movie trailers?

Reading the short teaser for each chapter of an adventure path doesn't give away every encounter or each villains' motivations. It merely paints a picture of the general idea of the module. Spoiling the BBEG's tactics and agenda is one thing. Telling PC's that the AP is tour of Ustalav is another.

Unless your DM modifies the pace and setting of the books, it isn't worth it. The first book gives you a little time, so feel free to drop a rank in it to get a little extra cash, but the grand majority of the adventure is on very fast rails.

Unless your DM modifies the pace and setting of the books, it isn't worth it. The first book gives you a little time, so feel free to drop a rank in it to get a little extra cash, but the grand majority of the adventure is on very fast rails.

Yes, but it *is* possible for the GM to make adjustments without snarling up the plot much. At least, that's my opinion after GMing the first three chapters. My players love them some crafting, so I've just put a little downtime in between each chapter and adjusted the plot hooks as necessary.

So feel free to ask your GM if he's willing to make the adjustments to let you use crafting.

Unless your DM modifies the pace and setting of the books, it isn't worth it. The first book gives you a little time, so feel free to drop a rank in it to get a little extra cash, but the grand majority of the adventure is on very fast rails.

Yes, but it *is* possible for the GM to make adjustments without snarling up the plot much. At least, that's my opinion after GMing the first three chapters. My players love them some crafting, so I've just put a little downtime in between each chapter and adjusted the plot hooks as necessary.

So feel free to ask your GM if he's willing to make the adjustments to let you use crafting.

Fair enough. That's what important- listening to your players and giving them what they need.

Mine are perfectly fine with the roller-coaster style of the Path, so we all promptly ignored crafting.

Very little. Mostly you are occupied getting as fast to the next location as possible, where you probably will soon be occupied with the adventure. You are pretty much dealing with a very extended chase scene after the first module.

If your GM is willing, s/he can provide some breathing room between some of the modules, but that requires changing up a few things. As written, there is exactly no downtime at all between the fifth and sixth modules, so don't expect that you can spend the large amounts of money you get at the higher levels on crafting.

Even with travel crafting another huge problem is finding a town large enough to buy things between chapter 2 and chapter 5. Unless you detour to Ardis (in the middle of chapter 3) or run the Side Trek before chapter 4 there's nowhere to buy magic items that cost more than 6,000gp!

My players have just started Wake of the Watcher and are all sitting on about 10 to 15k gp and have nowhere to spend it.

Even going back to Lepidstadt isn't going to help them much. If the item isn't 6,000gp or less they have to be commissioned and the AP timeline is starting to accelerate. Between Ascanor and Auren Vrood's base of operations I gave them time to stop in Ardis (5,600gp base price) and let them shop after defeating Vrood in Carrion Hill (4,000gp). The only place for any items not found in the AP will be Caliphas at 13,600gp or with the Palatine Eye or Vampire Court.

Maybe this is the better question, what is the assumed power level of items you think the PCs should have access to by the final chapter of the AP (roughly 15th level for CC)

I was talking about selling rather than buying. That is another big factor if you want to craft. Lepidstadt is the place where you can off-load all those magic items you don't want such as the Goats, the Staff, the Wand, all of which are worth lots.

For crafting, the first item is generally a ring of sustenance for each crafter. This will more than double their available crafting time as they can craft during days that the rest of the PCs are adventuring as well as craft longer during rest days.

(Speaking of which, if you could have any PHB magic item in real life, would it not be the ring of sustenance?!)

The only crafter we have is the Alchemist and then only alchemical items. So my group is stuck with either finding items or buying them. I gave them the opportunity to ask for three wish list items (minor, med, maj) to be dropped in the AP at various spots but only a few gave me anything to work with.

The ninja has two scrolls of teleport to get to Lepidstadt if need be, but so far they haven't used them.

Hmm... my party's wizard likes crafting but is going the rings/rods/wondrous items path, so arms and armor will have to come from people in the city. This will cause some issue with the druid's plan to get some wildshape friendly armor (the 'wild' quality, I believe).

Maybe I can figure something out for him in book 3. An alternative treasure item, perhaps. I haven't looked through it yet (we're off to see the Caromarc in the next session), but it will be that or crush his hopes for improved AC.

Hmm... my party's wizard likes crafting but is going the rings/rods/wondrous items path, so arms and armor will have to come from people in the city. This will cause some issue with the druid's plan to get some wildshape friendly armor (the 'wild' quality, I believe).

Maybe I can figure something out for him in book 3. An alternative treasure item, perhaps. I haven't looked through it yet (we're off to see the Caromarc in the next session), but it will be that or crush his hopes for improved AC.

Book 3 has a lot of

Spoiler:

werewolves

in it. It would totally make sense for one of them to have wild armor. It'll be very valuable, though. Be careful if you don't want to over-gear your party.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking but didn't want to spoil anything about book three, heh. I would replace an equivalent amount of other magical items to ensure the value isn't too much. I'm also running a 5 person party on the fast xp track, so I've got to keep an eye on that (since the books are written for 4 on medium). Although, in my favor, Carrion Crown is pretty gear-heavy as the APs go.